Halloween -- now this is a celebration that certainly causes one to pause and think. Is there Biblical basis for Christians to celebrate the occasion with the rest of the world? In a nutshell, Christians should not be celebrating Halloween. However, this does not mean that we should just shut our doors as though the hounds of hell were roaming outside.
A brief history of Halloween
I know that this can be a pretty divisive topic for some, and one simply cannot cover the entire history of Halloween in a few paragraphs. The long and short of it is, Halloween’s roots can be traced back to a Celtic tradition, where it involves the observation of summer sacrifices to gods in the Druidic tradition coming to an end. That marked the start of the Celtic year, where Samhain, the lord of death, is believed to have assigned evil spirits to torment human beings. One can only escape from such evil clutches by disguising themselves as such evil spirits. Not only that, the winter’s impending approach also translated to shorter daylight hours, and majority of the Halloween practices such as trick or treat is also associated with ancient superstitions and pagan rites.
Halloween today is celebrated in a very different way
Halloween is now seen as a holiday where children will dress up (mostly to do with the world of the supernatural) and go around, knocking from door-to-door while picking up candies or seeing some fun tricks performed by the homeowner. Christians might not dress up their children as ghouls, vampires and ghosts, but they might settle for the cape of a superhero instead -- especially when the peer pressure is there where it might be very difficult not to “celebrate” Halloween, or join in its festivities.
So what can Christians do?
Would preventing your child from joining the Halloween festivities kill him or her? After all, it is only one night out of the entire year, so I do not think that there is reason to mope around the house. In fact, you can turn it into an opportunity to share the Gospel and tell other visiting children to your home about the perceived “ghost” who walked on water -- and that would be none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Share the good news about Christ’s life, death, and resurrection to those who knock on your doors, and it is an excellent way of exposing your child or children to the many creative ways that missions and evangelism can be carried out, even in your immediate neighborhood.
After all, we have the Word of God which so clearly states that the world that we live in is fallen after Adam sinned, and there is a spiritual battle going on in our midst for the souls of everyone. We who know Christ have a responsibility to be the salt and light of the world, and with Christ being the light that shines brightly, so too are we able to do so. Just pray about how you can be more creative in the sharing of the Gospel this Halloween, and be prepared to see wonders happen.
